MEDITATIONS: I CHING; THE BOOK OF CHANGES, CANTO FORTY-THREE

Steadfast—Resolute—Cleanse
|or| Removal

Avoid half-heartedness at all costs during this period. Do not force an outcome. The situation is still in the process of unfolding. Purchase necessary supplies and plan for the future. At the same time, do not be consumed by worry. Seek to move forward but avoid large gains and be satisfied with smaller victories. (Bright-Fey 115)

Removal is brought up in the royal court. A sincere directive involves danger.
Commanding one’s own territory, it is not beneficial to go on the attack. It is beneficial to go somewhere.

Yang 1: To go ahead powerfully yet fail to prevail is faulty.

Yang 2: Be cautious and alert, and there is no worry even if there are attackers in the night.

Yang 3: Powerful in the cheekbones, there is misfortune. Going alone, meeting rain, enlightened people are decisive in removal. If they get wet, there is irritation, without fault.

Yang 4: With no flesh on the buttocks, one is lame. Lead the sheep, and regret vanishes. Hearing the words, one does not believe.

Yang 5: Purslane removed definitively, balanced action is blameless.

Yin 6: If there is no caution, in the end there is misfortune. (Cleary 264-271)

Just as reduction begets increase, eventually increase results in the removal of what-was as what-is-new expands into the space and pushes out its predecessor. In the case of Removal, the last holdouts of Yin weakness—influences tempting people to yield to immediate and short-term indulgences—are in the process of being purged by the overwhelming prevalence of Yang strength and creativity.

In the Taoist translation, John Bright-Fey likeness this process of an archer shooting an arrow into a firmament. The Heaven trigram below is the powerful and upward-aim archer, while the Lake trigram above is the water beyond the clouds. When Heaven’s arrow pierces into the heart of the Lake, there will be rain to follow—danger: those below must be prepared to stand firm and withstand the last gasps, the persuasions, of the resultant Yin deluge.

The aforementioned conditions are why there is danger in the final push to remove weakness and pettiness from the culture. When a court is full of adders, the sage will get bitten for daring to speak the truth as it is. Therefore, he must wait until the time is right. Then, when virtue is desired and pursued by not only the sage, but the people and the leaders, the sage can hope to speak openly and honestly. But even then, he must proceed with caution. For when there is but a single adder slithering among the courtiers, one bite is just as deadly as when the snakes were plentiful.

That is why the first Yang warns against rushing recklessly. It is wiser to advance slowly, taking time to secure oneself and one’s own virtues, before imposing those virtues on resistant criminals and psychopaths. Failure to properly prepare can end in any number of disasters. Hypocrites who do not possess the virtue they impose will be remembered later as villains. Or worse, those same hypocrites will target not vicious people, but people whose virtues they detest because they themselves don’t live up to them.

The second Yang represents the proper caution potentially abandoned by the first. From this balanced position, those who work to purge evil from their culture will be able to withstand both direct attacks and subversion by those who will seek to overturn their efforts.

The third Yang is another warning. Here, the body is used as a metaphor. The cheekbones are high on a person’s body, but they are not the top. In the third Yang, they represent those in middle positions, not quite administrators of cultural institutions, but nevertheless potentially influential. There is misfortune when these types go out on their own. They are middle-witted, and because of that, they are just wise enough to fall into temptations which appeal to those who want to feel that they are clever. The third Yang risks leaving the group and joining the sixth Yin to whom he corresponds. If this happens, he will likely be corrupted—as opposed to more enlightened souls who will not waiver. They are decisive, and because they do not doubt themselves, they are later not doubted by others. Hence why there my be irritation, but no fault.

The fourth Yang, representing those who hold positions of power within the institutions, warns of weakness among the cultural purge. Specifically, this is insufficiency among the bureaucrats and the middle managers. They are the kind of people who really just go along with whatever they are told is right for the time. They are also those who can never quite manage to fall in line. They always seem behind, yet, paradoxically, they don’t ever seem to posses wisdom from the past either. They have no buttocks on which to rest, and they are too lame to walk quickly along the path. This is unfortunate, because if they could fulfill their duties and lead the sheep, there would be no regret from their participation. However, these kinds of people don’t really believe anything. They refuse to commit. They are opportunists, fence-sitters, feckless, faithless, and bad faith actors.

But in the fifth position, high and balanced, Yang leadership overcomes the treachery within its own ranks. Like with the second Yang below, caution has been observed and virtue cultivated. The fifth Yang is prepared and morally unassailable. That is why he can advance along the path and contribute to the forward progress of his culture by executing on the removal of the last holdouts of weakness. He is the strong archer whose aim is correct and who can withstand the rain which must inevitably douse him.

All the while, the sixth Yin is whispering that caution should be thrown to the wind. She is yielding at the extreme end of the body of pleasure. Those who follow her are doomed to a dark road—though it may seem pleasant at first, or reasonable, or fair, it is none of these things. Moderation and balance cannot exist within excess. To think otherwise is to invite contradiction, to conflate virtue and vice. He who pursues this path will be removed with the rest of the evil detritus.

I Ching; The Book of Changes, with commentaries by Cheng Yi, translated by Thomas Cleary, Shambala Library, 2003.

I Ching: The Book of Changes; An authentic Taoist translation, translated by John Bright-Fey, Sweetwater Press, 2006.